CULTUEE UNDER GLASS. 239 



tion is not stopped, bat its energy is arrested and the length of its lines 

 so shortened that little or no heat is lost. The heat of the house is 

 radiated to the opaque coTering and back, and so the temperature of the 

 house is preserved sufficiently high to insure the safety of the trees. 



It is surprising that the use of covering for peach and other houses is 

 not more common. Peaches might be grown on low ground walls 

 or borders sloping to the south or west, and trained on trellises about the 

 size of common garden frames of one, two, or three lights wide. These 

 lights might be placed over the trees from January to the end of Hay, 

 and then removed. Or, should the season set in cold and wet, and the 

 fruit seem too late to ripen, the portable frames might be again placed 

 over them in September, and kept on till they were ripe. The great 

 advantage of these low trees and portable frames consists in the facility 

 with which mats, litter, and other coverings conld be thrown over them. 

 Low peach houses also afford excellent facilities for covering. Bolls of 

 reed mats, the entice length of the roof, are admirably adapted for these 

 purposes, and will carry any peach house safely through the severest spring 

 frosts. Coverings are almost impracticable on the higher forms of peach 

 and orchard houses. These ought, therefore, to be provided with the 

 means of heating in cases of sudden and severe depressions of tempera- 

 ture. A 4in. flow and return pipe will generally suffice for this purpose. 

 Even the old-fashioned flue run along, in or against, the back wall would 

 render such houses frost-proof. 



WhUe strongly advocating that cool peach houses, and especially small 

 ones, should be furnished with facilities for heating, or bnUt so as to be 

 easily covered, it is needful to add that the heat should not be used 

 unless wanted ; and it is only during spring and, it may be, autumn, 

 that it is likely to be required. At other times and seasons a close glass 

 house affords such facilities for the utilisation and concentration of solar 

 heat that no artificial warmth is needed. So that the expense for fuel is 

 likely to be almost nil ; while the capital invested in boiler, pipes, or 

 flues will yield a good interest in a sure and certain crop of fruit 

 annually. This means of saving a crop f rom , the rigours of our climate 

 must not be confounded with the forcing of the peach under glass. 



To have ripe peaches in March, April, May, and June, sufficient heating 

 surface must be provided to command a temperature of 55deg., 60deg., 

 65deg. inside, be the external temperature what it may. To do this 

 effectually a good boiler, and four, six, or eight 4in. pipes, would be 

 needed, according to the size of the house, the locality, the time the 

 peaches were wanted, &o. The truest economy in all such cases is to 

 provide a liberal supply of heating surface. The more pipes, as a rule, the 

 less fire is wanted, and hot-water pipes, though dear to purchase, are only 



